Trotskyites Oppose Card-Check Legislation

Amazing what pops up in an Internet news search for “card check,” in this case, a sectarian dispute among the totalitarian left. From The Militant, the journal of the Trotskyite (or is it Trotskyist?) Socialist Workers Party:

The trade union tops and middle-class radicals like the Communist Party USA herald this bill as labor’s salvation, because it would allow for union recognition if a majority of workers in a company simply signed a card saying they want the union without requiring a vote.

This is masquerading by the labor officialdom as doing something to organize the unorganized. Contrary to claims by union officials, the problem workers face in trying to unionize is not existing labor laws that are “ineffective,” such as the National Labor Relations Act that requires elections to certify a union, but the labor tops’ course of class collaboration.

Class-conscious workers can use the Militant to explain that they are for secret-ballot union representation elections because it’s the most effective way for workers to demonstrate what they want. And they can point to experiences over the last decade, reported accurately in the Militant, showing that even in today’s adverse conditions workers have won such elections when they’ve taken ownership of their struggles from the beginning.

Phew. In contrast, the 28th National Convention of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA) endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act in 2005. The World Workers Party, the Stalinists who bring you the peace marches under the banner of International Answer, also support card-check.

No doubt similar factional disagreements will be revealed in the CPUSA archives the Party has just donated to NYU. (Story here.) It promises to be a remarkable historical resource, even moreso if the materials have not been cleansed of documents demonstrating the already well-documented active Soviet control of the Party during the 20th Century.